NFL owners overwhelmingly approved a tentative agreement Thursday that would end the lockout, provided that players re-establish their union and sign off on the proposal. But the players didn’t vote, leaving the country’s most popular sport in limbo for at least another day.

University of Minnesota law professor Dale Carpenter was inside the Capitol when the Senate gave the green light to the amendment, which he says proposes that “only a union of one man and woman shall be valid or recognized as a marriage in Minnesota.”

The state Senate on Wednesday approved a statewide vote in 2012 on a gay marriage ban in the Minnesota Constitution, pushing forward what’s expected to be a contentious debate over the definition of legal unions.

Republicans newly in charge of the Legislature outlined plans Tuesday to put a gay marriage ban before Minnesota voters in 2012, plunking a charged issue into a session that has so far been dominated mainly by a projected $5 billion deficit.

A contract covering 2,200 members of the Amalgamated Transit Union expired last July and the rank-and-file have twice rejected offers that included wage freezes and higher payments for health insurance.

The chief House sponsor of a bill to require a photo ID for voting in Minnesota said Monday she expects the Legislature to pass it soon — and that supporters are likely to bring the issue directly to voters if Gov. Mark Dayton vetoes it.

Wisconsin state troopers were dispatched Thursday to the doorsteps of some of the AWOL Democratic senators in hopes of finding at least one who would come back to allow a vote on a measure to curb the power of public-employee unions.

Thousands of Twin Cities nurses vote Monday on a proposal for another strike, only this one would be open-ended. 12,000 nurses struck 14 hospitals on June 10th, but it didn’t help movement toward a contract settlement. […]